Schoolgirl hurt in nasty noise row with grieving man

Ross Irby
Reporter
Reporter Ross Irby has wander-lust mixed with a sense of adventure, spending way too many years roaming about Australia, its back roads and off-shore foreign lands.
Enjoys a yarn, story telling and tales, along with curiosity to find out about the lives and (mis)adventures of others.
An off-beat sense of humour, not taking it all too seriously, along with big doses of flexibility/adaptability whatever the situation is the best way to go.
You have to have the life experiences to have empathy...

INCENSED by ongoing noise from a neighbouring unit, a man confronted a 16-year-old girl, grabbed her by the throat and kicked her on the ground, breaking her collarbone.

Through a Samoan interpreter, Iese Ulimasao Tolo, 42, pleaded guilty in the Ipswich Magistrates Court to assault causing bodily harm to the teenager in Pemberton St, Booval, at 9.45am on July 19, 2017.

Mr Fairclough said Tolo knocked on the girl's door at 5am that day after the evening's noise from the unit above had disrupted his wife's rest.

A young male swore at him and "gave him short shift". When Tolo phoned police, they had been unable to assist.

Mr Fairclough said the noise above his unit escalated, with swearing and stomping.

Tolo "lost his cool" and approached the girl and a male outside. The male ran off.

Tolo's wife was gravely ill at the time of the offence and she has since passed away.

Prosecutor Senior Constable Carl Spargo said the girl suffered a fractured right collarbone from a kick.

Magistrate David Shepherd queried some aspects of the girl's victim impact statement in which she referred to sustaining shock and trauma and taking more than six weeks off school.

Mr Shepherd said Tolo grabbed her by the throat, pushing her against a wall, then throwing her to the ground where she was kicked.

"It appears your frustrations were taken out on the first available person after the young man ran away," Mr Shepherd said.

Defence lawyer Matthew Fairclough said Tolo's wife died in November from a brain tumour and had been seriously ill at the time of the offence.